Bihar to move apex court against Bhagalpur riots life term convict’s acquittal, release

Senior officials from Bhagalpur are already camping in New Delhi to prepare a statement of facts for filing an appeal in the apex court, against riots convict Kameshwar Yadav’s acquittal by the Patna HC, on June 29.

The Bihar government is planning to move the Supreme Court against the acquittal by the Patna high court of Kameshwar Yadav, earlier sentenced to serve a life term after being convicted for his alleged role in the 1989 communal riots that claimed over 1,000 lives in Bihar’s Bhagalpur district.

The Patna high court had acquitted Yadav on June 29 after he served10 years of his life imprisonment. The bench of Justice Ashwani Kumar Singh observed in its 39 page judgment that there was no concrete evidence in the police investigation that proved the involvement of Yadav in the riots.

On July 4, 2017 Yadav walked free.

According to highly placed sources, senior officials from Bhagalpur are already camping in Delhi to prepare a statement of facts for filing the appeal in the apex court.

Bhagalpur Kotwali police station case (no. 83/90), in which Yadav was convicted in 2007, was one of the 27 riot cases in which the accused had earlier escaped conviction for want of evidence over 27-years ago. He could be convicted only because these cases were reopened by the Nitish Kumar government in 2006.

On November 28, 2007, the court of ADJ-VII Shambhu Nath Mishra, awarded Kameshwar life term under Section 364/149 (abduction for the purpose of murder), seven years' imprisonment under Section 201 (tampering with evidence) and three years' jail each under Section 148 (possessing lethal weapons) of the IPC and 27 Arms Act.

The then special public prosecutor Mohammad Salauddin had said that Yadav was the lone accused in the case lodged by Bibi Waleema, who accused him of killing her son, Mohammad Munna.

Later, in 2009, another court , that of ADJ Arvind Madhav, found Yadav guilty of shooting dead Mohammad Qayyum, a shopkeeper, and sentenced him. Yadav was charged with firing upon Qayyum while leading a mob of rioters, on October 24, 1989.

According to sources Yadav had appealed against the judgment of conviction and order of sentence, which was passed by the trial judges against him in 2007 and 2009. The double bench of Justice Dharnidhar Jha and Ahsanuddin Amanullah on September 3, 2015, however, came out with a split verdict.

Yadav’s counsel Subodh Kumar Jha told HT that following the split verdict, the then chief justice of Patna high court had referred the matter to another judge,Justice Ashwani Kumar Singh, who passed the acquittal order on June 29 this year.

Jha said Justice Singh noted in his order that Yadav has been made accused on February 7, 1990 after four months of the incident.

According to Jha, one of the informant Mohammad Nasiruddin suspected that the rioters had disposed of the dead body of his son Mohammad Qayyum. He further stated that he had identified at least 10 persons by their face, but did not know their names and knew this appellant only from before because he was a resident of his village and was also a notorious fellow of the locality.

Jha further stated that Yadav a resident of Parbatti in Bhagalpur lost his wife Geeta Yadav (2004) and his son Sanjay Yadav (2002)